Grassroots
Initiative Hits Two Billion Mark -Target
Raised to Over One Tree Per Person by Crucial
2009 Climate Convention Meeting
Nairobi, 13 May 2008
- A unique worldwide tree planting initiative,
aimed at empowering citizens to corporations
and people up to presidents to embrace the
climate change challenge, has now set its
sights on planting seven billion trees.
It follows the news,
also announced today, that the Billion Tree
Campaign has in just 18 months catalyzed
the planting of two billion trees, double
its original target.
The campaign, spearheaded
by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and
the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), was
unveiled in 2006 as one response to the
threat but also the opportunities of global
warming, as well as to the wider sustainability
challenges from water supplies to biodiversity
loss.
To date the initiative,
which is under the patronage of Nobel Peace
Prize Laureate and Kenyan Green Belt Movement
founder Professor Wangari Maathai and His
Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco,
has broken every target set and has catalyzed
tree planting in close to 155 countries.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General
and UNEP Executive Director, said today:
"When the Billion Tree Campaign was
launched at the Climate Convention meeting
in Nairobi in 2006, no one could have imagined
it could have flowered so fast and so far.
But it has given expression to the frustrations
but also the hopes of millions of people
around the world".
"Having exceeded
every target that has been set for the campaign,
we are now calling on individuals, communities,
business and industry, civil society organizations
and governments to evolve this initiative
onto a new and even higher level by the
crucial climate change conference in Copenhagen
in late 2009," he said.
"In 2006 we wondered
if a billion tree target was too ambitious;
it was not. The goal of two billion trees
has also proven to be an underestimate.
The goal of planting seven billion trees
? equivalent to just over a tree per person
alive on the planet ?must therefore also
be do-able given the campaign's extraordinary
track record and the self-evident worldwide
support," he added.
The Billion Tree Campaign
has become a practical expression of private
and public concern over global warming.
Heads of State including
the presidents of Indonesia, the Maldives,
Mexico, Turkey and Turkmenistan as well
as businesses; cities; faith, youth and
community groups have enthusiastically taken
part. Individuals have accounted for over
half of all participants.
? In a single day in
Uttar Pradesh, India, 10.5 million trees
were planted.
? 35 million young people in Turkey have
been mobilized to plant trees.
? 500,000 schoolchildren in sub-Saharan
Africa and the United Kingdom have become
engaged.
It has also attracted the support of multilateral
organizations including the Convention on
Biological Diversity whose new Green Wave
initiative was launched in advance of its
important conference being held in Bonn,
Germany later this month, and which supports
the Billion, now Seven Billion, Tree Campaign.
Tree planting remains
one of the most cost-effective ways to address
climate change. Trees and forests play a
vital role in regulating the climate since
they absorb carbon dioxide ? containing
an estimated 50% more carbon than the atmosphere.
Deforestation, in turn, accounts for over
20% of the carbon dioxide humans generate,
rivaling the emissions from other sources.
Trees also play a crucial
role in providing a range of products and
services to rural and urban populations,
including food, timber, fiber, medicines
and energy as well as soil fertility, water
and biodiversity conservation.
"The Billion Tree
Campaign has not only helped to mobilize
millions of people to respond to the challenges
of climate change, it has also opened the
door, especially for the rural poor, to
benefit from the valuable products and services
the trees provide," said Dennis Garrity,
Director General of the Nairobi-based World
Agroforestry Centre. "Smallholder farmers
could also benefit from the rapidly growing
global carbon market by planting and nurturing
trees," he said.
The two billionth tree
was put into the ground as part of an agroforestry
project carried out by the UN's World Food
Programme (WFP). It now planted 60 million
trees in 35 countries to improve food security.
This news comes as the United Nations calls
for resolute action to end the global food
crisis which affects an estimated 73 million
people in 80 countries around the world.
In announcing the agency's
contribution to the Billion Tree Campaign,
WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran said:
"WFP is concerned about rising costs
of food and fuel which inevitably hit the
'bottom billion' hardest. More people will
require WFP assistance at a time when WFP's
current programmes are reaching fewer due
to the critical funding gap created by rising
costs."
In terms of geographic
distribution, Africa is the leading region
with over half of all tree plantings. Regional
and national governments organized the most
massive plantings, with Ethiopia leading
the count at 700 million, followed by Turkey
(400 million), Mexico (250 million), and
Kenya (100 million).
The campaign has also
generated significant appeal in post-conflict
and post-disaster environments. In acting
upon the words of the campaign's patron
Wangari Maathai "when we plant trees,
we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of
hope," communities in Afghanistan,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq, Liberia and Somalia
contributed to the global effort with over
2 million trees.
Furthermore, mangrove
plantings were organized by Planète
Urgence in Banda Aceh and other Indonesian
provinces recovering from the December 2004
Indian Ocean Tsunami, while Replant New
Orleans initiative in the United States
sponsored a planting of fruit-bearing trees
to breathe new life into a community struggling
in the aftermath of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina.
The private sector pitched
in as well, accounting for almost 6% of
all trees planted. Multinational corporations
including Bayer, Toyota, Yves Rocher, Accor
Group of Hotels and Tesco Lotus supported
the campaign, as did hundreds of medium
and small-sized enterprises the world over.
The Billion Tree Campaign
has further highlighted the cultural and
spiritual dimension of trees with groups
as diverse as the International Olympic
Committee, the World Scouting Movement,
SOS Sahel Initiative or yet "Geiko
and Maiko for Forests" ? Japanese geishas
from the hometown of the Kyoto Protocol
? actively participating in the initiative.
"The Billion
Tree Campaign is UNEP's call to the nearly
7 billion people sharing our planet today
to take simple, positive steps to protect
our climate. It is a defining issue of our
era that can only be tackled through individual
and collective action. I am convinced that
the new target will be met ? one tree at
a time," concluded Executive Director
Steiner.
Notes to Editors
The Billion Tree Campaign web site with
pledges, plantings and news is at
www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign
http://www.worldagroforestry.org/billiontreecampaign/
The United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is at
http://unfccc.int
The Copenhagen 2009 Climate Change Conference
is at
www.cop15.dk/en/
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
is at
http://www.cbd.int/
The CBD's Green Wave is at
http://greenwave.cbd.int/
The CBD's COP 9 website is at
www.cbd.int/cop9/
The World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) is
at
www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/
The World Food Programme (WFP) is at
www.wfp.org/
The Nature Conservancy is at
www.nature.org/
UNEP's climate change pages are at
www.unep.org/themes/climatechange/
Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson
